


La Bestia Senza Pace

by Ghoul_Chick



Category: Naruto
Genre: Demon, Loneliness, M/M, Young Kakashi, kakashi is an independent woman, mention of suicide, mild stalking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-02-28 12:38:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13271622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghoul_Chick/pseuds/Ghoul_Chick
Summary: "Kakashi Hatake was what the village liked to call a prodigy, for they liked to label all citizens. Innocent enough little labels they could fit all people into and control their behaviour..."***Or in which love is always slow to blossom and stalking is considered great courting practise.***Or more importantly in which, sometimes the cards fate deals you are harder pills to swallow than is ever fair, but there is always a silver lining, even to the most tragic of stories.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> updates might be slow coming so bare with me

The shrieking of a newly born infant penetrates the otherwise silent and desolate night. Its howling voice, breeching every erected barrier and wall, seeping into the eardrums of any lonely soul still wandering the streets at a time when only the dead would be brave enough to venture the nights.  
It inhales a gasping breath and again unleashes a healthy burst of high pitched shrieking from out of powerful lungs and the three inhabitants of the room smile at each other. The man holds the woman’s hands as the child wails between them, and the nurse sending a chaste smile towards the stars, steps away from the couple to give them space to marvel at their treasure.  
There is nothing more beautiful than the first cries of a baby. The eagerly awaited noise that signals the beginnings of life. The noise that begets the exhale of anxiously held breaths of every person in the vicinity, for there is nothing more tragic and heart destroying than silence upon an infant’s birth. The kind of silence only broken by the subsequent wails of the mother, and the rage of a briefly established father. 

As the infant gradually quietens, and both mother and child drift to sleep, no one notices the fourth shadow within the room, too big to be that of the child and yet not belonging to any of the other adults that occupied the space. The joy within the room was too great, the admiration of the newest inhabitant of the village too strong to be dampened by the foreign feeling saturating the room, as though there was something other watching them from a distance, it too admiring the little tufts of silver hair atop the infant’s head, it’s scrunched eyes and balled up miniature fists. 

Little did any of them realise that this would be the first of two trips to the hospital within the week. One for the purpose of new life and one for the loss of another. As Konoha’s White Fang rushed the limp body of his wife out of their house, leaping across rooftops as fast as his years of brutally trained legs would take him, he watched, tears falling from his eyes, as the life drained from hers.  
And as their week old son, Kakashi, cried within his gently rocking cot at their supposedly empty home, he was lulled back to sleep by the soothing hum of a vague shadowed form. 

***  
Kakashi Hatake was what the village liked to call a prodigy, for they liked to label all citizens. Innocent enough little labels they could fit all people into and control their behaviour. Shinobi, citizen, prodigy, dead-last— every person could be classified. It made the Hokage’s job that little bit easier when you could reduce an entire person’s story down to one tiny, insignificant label.

By the age of 4, Kakashi had already enrolled into the ninja Academy and was rising to the top of his class at an alarming rate. No one paid attention to the fact that the child rarely interacted with his peers, or that despite his prodigious status, he seemed a little too independent for a child his age. For that was what he was, a child. All they saw was the prodigy. Kakashi Hatake, prodigy son of Konoha’s White Fang and his dearly departed wife. 

Nothing more and nothing less.

This was fine with Kakashi. He prefered solitude. The gratifying breath you could take alone. The mask you could shed when not in the presence of others. He may have been a child but he knew how the ninja world worked. The weak were annihilated whilst the strong thrived. He too would thrive, like his father. It was better not to be weighed down by emotions that would eventually get you killed. But there was one person Kakashi could truly say he felt anything for in the entire village and that was his father. Sakumo Hatake, the White Fang and legendary warrior. Not only did Kakashi love him, but he admired him. Wanted nothing more than to make him proud. And so he would work as much as his young limbs would allow him, and then some. 

Kakashi didn’t mind the fact that his father was rarely present at home when he came back from the Academy, nor did he mind having to eat dinner by himself some nights during the week, and this was because he knew he could count on his father to be there when it really mattered. He was there when he had first enrolled into the academy, being embarrassing and trying to make him become friends with some weird kid wearing green spandex. He had been the one to teach him his first jutsu and how to throw a kunai. Had been there on nights where Kakashi couldn't sleep for fear of the nightmares he seemed to get whenever he was alone for too long.

He had been there, and for Kakashi that was all that mattered.

Tonight was one of those nights where Kakashi was left alone to his own devices as his father had yet another mission to attend to. In the dimly lit kitchen, Kakashi’s small 4 and a half year old frame stood attempting to think of something to make for dinner. Looking around Kakashi was not pleased with what he saw, which wasn't much considering he was about half the size of the table tops and stretching on his tiptoes didn't seem to be cutting it. Either way as he stood there Kakashi realised that he had failed to buy anymore food from the grocery store after running out the previous night. As his stomach grumbled, Kakashi could think of nothing other than getting food and getting food quickly so, pulling up a chair towards the cupboard, he made it his mission to scavenge some form of edible substance from within the dismal looking kitchen. 

Two cupboards in, and Kakashi knew the chances of getting anything to eat tonight were slim, but it was as he was about to close the third cupboard that he saw it. There, tucked away in one dark and slightly cobwebbed corner was a pot of instant ramen. Lunging, his small hands closed around the pot and he almost cried tears of joy. Mind you, this was not to say that Kakashi enjoyed much ramen, but at this point anything would be better than going hungry tonight. With this in mind Kakashi set about preparing his meal. 

As Kakashi padded around the kitchen attempting to turn the kettle on, a shadow flickered behind his body, just far enough away to not be seen, and with that it had begun. A dance of sorts in which only one partner was aware. A gentle game of “keep out of reach”, for each time he came close to seeing the shadowed form it vanished from sight, tucked away within a larger shadow or simply disappearing.  
As Kakashi replaced the kettle filled with freshly boiled water, he turned back to watch the ramen for the two minutes it would take to cook. Little did the young Hatake know that he had not correctly returned the kettle to its rightful place and as he turned his back, it wobbled precariously and began falling towards him, scalding water about to wrap the boy in its embrace. Only it seemed this love story had been cut short. Not only did the hot water not hit the boy, it didn’t even make it halfway through its descent towards the ground. The once rapidly plummeting kettle now lay frozen in the air mid-fall as though frozen in time. And just as quickly as it had begun its downwards journey, it returned back to its rightful place. Sensing something amiss, the child prodigy glanced behind him but was too late and so he missed the shadowed form that seamlessly melted back into the darkness. With a shake of his head, and a gentle reprimand for always being so on edge, the young boy returned to watching his ramen cook.


	2. Chapter 2

The routine Kakashi had quickly established since he began attending the ninja Academy seemed quite simple but for a child aged just over 5 it was beginning to be hard to keep up with. The day started as soon as his sleeping body felt the first rays of sunshine that signalled that dawn had arrived. This was a skill he had mastered over his short life - rising as the sun did. It enabled him to complete the many things he needed to do within a day. The only time he got to take a break from his schedule was when his father was not away on missions and could fulfil his rightful role as parent. Not that Kakashi resented him for not being there to look after him as civilian parents seemed to do for their own children. He was a ninja and he had discovered that he could not be granted the luxuries civilians afforded. With the hole left behind by his mother, Kakashi had to all but raise himself whilst his father took endless high ranking missions to make ends meet. There was no resentment, just acceptance. This was what life was like. He had never known anything else and so his still young body and mind adapted to this lifestyle. Wake up at the crack of dawn, clean the house, make breakfast for either just himself or his father to grab as he rushed out of the door towards another mission. That was not to say that the breakfast was any good, but they   
made do with what his young hands could salvage up. Then he would head into the woods surrounding their compound for some training before finally making his way to the Academy. 

To say that the Academy was not what he expected would be an understatement. Even before he knew what the Academy was, he had wanted to be a ninja. Had wanted to make his father proud. But most importantly, he knew being a ninja was the only way he would be able to really help his father. Once he started taking missions he would be able to pull his share of the weight in the house. It was his dream. And when he had finally learnt about the place where all great ninja begin their journey he had been thrilled. Well as thrilled as he could be. He had wanted to start immediately but he still had some time to wait before anyone would even consider letting someone so young start their training. In the year he had to wait before his father said he could convince the Hokage to enrol him as a student he had devised countless pictures of what it would be like. What he would learn and what great knowledge he would gain. He imagined the wise sensei he would be learning from and the various ninja skills he would drill into him, moulding him to become the best ninja that he could possibly be.   
His favourite daydream, as any young child could imagine was the one where, after countless hours of hard work and dedication, he was finally able to take his sensei down in hand to hand taijutsu, after finally defeating every other child in his class. That was his ultimate dream. From there he could work his way up the ninja ladder until he could finally stand shoulder to shoulder with his father as a great leaf ninja. 

On his first day at the Academy, with his father in tow, he saw his dreams crumple and die before his eyes. The ninja Academy was not the safe haven of greatness that he had imagined. It wasn’t even a place of great learning as he had dreamed. It was nothing. The practical session were redundant. The history lessons their glorified “sensei” gave were banal, and the other kids were nightmares. It was bad enough that he was the youngest one there, only half the other kids’ age which earned him more than one nasty look, but the fact that he had never really interacted with other kids, let alone civilians, made it impossible for him to create any meaningful bonds. Instead he decided it would be better if he stayed by himself and tried to get through his time there. He had already concluded that there was nothing more this school could teach him that he did not already know, so instead he would increase his individual training, in hopes that this, coupled with what little the Academy had to offer would be enough to get him where he wanted to be. It was around this time that Kakashi decided to start wearing a face mask. To his young brain, this was the best way to disguise any disdain that might show through during his time at the Academy. He didn’t want anymore attention than he was already receiving. 

It was on one of these mind-numbingly boring days when he was returning home from the Academy that he sensed something amiss. A little niggling feeling in the back of his mind which told him to pause, to wait. It told him to widen his senses to anything that might be waiting to attack, and since Kakashi had been raised to always follow his gut, he did. He stopped in the middle of the path and breathed. He focused all his efforts on slowing down his steadily rising heart rate, and listened to the sounds around him. Listened to the leaves swaying in the breeze, the footfalls of civilians heading home and the steadily dulling thrum of the marketplace. 

“KA-KA-SHI,” the piercing voice cut through his concentration and startled a jump out of him, and the next thing he knew there was a tiny body flying through the air towards him. He had just about enough sense to sidestep out of the way, and the body went crashing onto the ground. This did not stop the child from bouncing right back up as though nothing had happened. 

“Ah, my rival, I see you are still bursting with youthful energy.” The blank look Kakashi meted out to the intruder did nothing to dull his enthusiasm. 

“I look forward to tomorrow, where our passions for life will clash yet again and we may learn what my father calls “the joys of youth!!”” Before Kakashi could deign to respond to such stupid notions, not that he intended to, the spandex clad child was gone as quickly as he had come. Frolicking into what looked like a tropical beach with a sunset in the distance..

Shaking the image out of his head, and the entire encounter, Kakashi attempted to yet again focus on his surroundings. It took him no more than a few heartbeats to realise there was nothing there. Nothing more out of the ordinary than Maito Gai anyway. He was being what his father liked to call “hypervigilant”. He must have worked too hard at the Academy. Yes, that was it. He had worked too hard. No matter how much he tried to rationalise the feeling away it didn’t stop the hairs on his arms from standing on end. Nor did it stop the slight flinch he gave when he heard a branch snap in the distance.

Picking up the pace Kakashi began walking back towards his home. The more he walked the faster he found his footsteps becoming. The once steady footfalls becoming more and more erratic till he was all but sprinting down the streets.. As he ran home, he found himself glancing back and forth, even more so as the afternoon sky gave way to an evening dimness and the once perfectly normal streets gained an eerie glow. As Kakashi took yet another glance behind him, he glimpsed what appeared to be a shadowed form flicking from building to building. New terror struck his young frame causing him to push his already rapidly pounding feet even faster on the pavement. His breath rattled out of the cage of his chest as he ran but he didn’t care. He tore his way through winding alleyways and desolate streets until he slammed his body through his front door. Slamming the piece of wood shut, he latched the lock and ran towards his bedroom, diving under the covers, for once behaving like what he was - a child. Kakashi stayed in this position, huddled under the covers hoping that the terror would pass until his eyes began to feel heavy and he fell into a blissful nothingness. 

Come morning, where there seemed to be no residual signs of the fear of last night, Kakashi vows never to speak of the incident again, which is why a week later when his father returns from his latest mission and asks if everything had been okay during his time away, all the younger Hatake does is nod his head and hug his father. If said father noticed the slight tremor in the child’s frame, he said nothing of it.


End file.
